Amazon confirmed Monday morning that its annual Prime Day shopping bacchanal will take place on October 13 and 14 in what will be a major test of its ability to handle increased spending ahead of a holiday shopping season that begins earlier. Never.
For the second year in a row, Amazon’s Prime Day sales event will last two days. But this year, Amazon will face traditional rivals that are more formidable than last year, notably Walmart, Target and Best Buy, which have cleverly used their strong store networks and websites to win over shoppers. Target, for example, saw its online sales nearly quadruple last quarter and also announced Monday that it will also host a two-day event from October 13-14.
However, despite their prowess, these retailers still lag far behind Amazon; the online retailer made nearly $ 90 billion in revenue in the second quarter.
Prime Day, a shopping party invented in 2015 that is unrelated to any major social occasions, is usually held in the summer at a slow time for shopping.
The event aims to help Amazon reach a bigger goal: getting people to sign up for Prime, its 150 million-member service that offers faster, unlimited shipping for an annual fee, and entertainment like music and movies, which makes Amazon the default electronic device. Service. Commerce. consumer site. That’s even more crucial at a time when Walmart has launched its own program.
As Amazon seeks to maintain its grip on its rivals, Prime Day will serve as a “test” to handle another surge in demand ahead of an unprecedented holiday season. The company has hired 100,000 more workers this year to help it handle the increased sales volume during the holidays.
Later, Bloomberg reported this month that Amazon planned to build at least 1,000 smaller distribution centers to counter Walmart’s advantage with its thousands of stores. In the spring, Amazon struggled to meet its shipping deadlines, something that it hopes to avoid over the holidays by resolving any issues on Prime Day.
For now, it will allow Amazon to take a leap in holiday shopping, something that both industry analysts and CEOs of rivals like Target and Kohl’s agree will start much earlier in 2020 than in previous years.
